Charles Good

(1902-80) An active observer and Montreal Centre member. Received the Service Award in 1960.

CHARLES M. Good (1902-80) received the Service Award in 1960 having been largely responsible for the establishment of Montreal Centre's Observatory, and for very ably directing their public relations activities, including the highly successful star nights in Westmount Park. In many respects his career with the Montreal Centre followed the same course as Frank DeKinder's. He first took an interest in meteors in the '40s and continued to observe meteor showers with other Montreal members at least until 1956. Though he contributed to practically every observational activity, his special interest was in timing occultations. He chaired an occultation section of the Centre starting in 1955, and the Montreal group became renowned for the extent of its contribution in this field. In the years 1967-69 when he was Chairman of the Lunar Occultation Section of the AAVSO, Montreal members contributed nearly half of the worldwide total reported to that organization. Charles Good began serving on the AAVSO Council in 1958, eventually becoming their President in 1971.

When Isabel Williamson wrote a tribute to Charles Good in Skyward, she noted that, "He served the Centre in many capacities, including a term as President from 1954 to 1957 and again from 1965 to 1966, but the position he cherished most was that of Librarian, a post he held from 1945 to 1965, with a brief break while President He knew his library well, for he had read every book in it, and he used wisely the limited funds at his disposal to expand it."

As a permanent mark of their esteem, Montreal Centre established the Charles M. Good Award in 1981 which is presented to members for contributions to the Centre.